F. J. Snell

“ But if the Englishman be infirm, he shall find another who will do it for him. If one of them shall be vanquished he shall pay a fine of forty shillings to the King. If an Englishman summon a Frenchman, and be unwilling to prove his charge by judgment or by wager of battle, I will, nevertheless, that the Frenchman purge himself by an informal oath. ”

“ Mayor and all the town suddenly, as pleased God Almighty, were ready upon the heath, every man with their best weapons; so as by good chance every householder being at home, Sunday morning, eager as lions, made show almost even like to the number of the captains and all their soldiers.... ”

“ In the country the organization of society is more simple, and the life of the fields, if more tranquil, must always be less vivid, and, if the term may be allowed, less conscious than that of the town. Nothing, however, is more certain than that the formation of towns came after and was in most instances the progeny of rural conditions. It is an amazing circumstance that not until the middle of the last century did the great city of Manchester emancipate itself from the last traces of feudal subjection by the purchase of manorial and market rights. ”

“ Miracle plays represent a further stage of development, in which a rude and popular art shook itself free from the trammels of ritual, outgrew the austere restrictions of sacred surroundings, and yet kept fast hold on the religious tradition on which it had been nourished, and which remained to the last its supreme attraction.
The liturgical origin of the miracle play may almost be taken for granted, and the single question that is likely to arise is whether the custom evolved itself from observances connected with Easter, or Christmas, or both festivals in equal or varying measure. ”

“ Thus Eleanor, third daughter of King John, "on the death of her first husband, the Earl of Pembroke, 1231, in the first transports of her grief, made in public a solemn vow in the presence of Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, that she would never again become a wife, but remain a true spouse of Christ, and received a ring in confirmation, which she, however, broke, much to the indignation of a strong party of the laity and clergy of England, on her marriage with Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester." ”

“ To all appearances many of the arrangements found in the course of, and to the close of, the Middle Ages, and even (in a decaying and disappearing form) almost to our own generation, were descended from that well-nigh immemorial antiquity, in which our forefathers were colonists in what was to them a new world—a world of forest and of fen, of man-eating beasts, and alien foemen as fierce or fiercer than they. These conditions determined the course of action of the men who lived under them. For safety, men of one blood dwelt together in a stockaded village or tún. ”

“ Here, it is evident, we are on the same ground as in the chapter treating of purgation by oath and the ordeal. When we recollect that the thief had to face the pain and uncertain issue of an ordeal, and that conviction might involve, in addition to the fine, banishment, slavery, or the loss of a foot, we see at once the temptation to abscond, but the disappearance of the accused was not only prejudicial to the accuser, but compromised the person who was responsible for his production. ”

“ Thus the secular clergy and the laity were recognized as fully eligible for all the benefits of this high privilege, but it is identified for the most part with the functions of the regular clergy, whose leisured and tranquil existence was more consonant with the punctual observance of the custom, and by whom it was handed down to successive generations as a laudable and edifying practice importing much comfort for the living, and, it might be hoped, true succour for the pious dead. ”

“ But the City, if it defended what was esteemed the legitimate claim of the baker to a proper livelihood, was equally solicitous for the welfare of his customers, and woe betide the baker who sold bread deficient in weight or quality! For the first offence he was drawn on a hurdle from the Guildhall through the principal streets, which would be thronged with people and foul with traffic, and hanging from his neck was the guilty loaf. ”

“ These duties are now performed by the Mayor and Corporation, but the custom was observed in the traditional manner at least as late as 1830. We have ascertained that not only did the Portreeve take the lead on these occasions, but, like the Mayor and other members of the Corporation, he was ex officio guardian of the poor of the town and parish—a privilege which he shared with them alone. We have here, therefore, an instance of dual authority lasting well into the nineteenth century, or nearly six hundred years after London had purged itself of the feudal element in its administration. ”

“ Beyond the arable land lay a ring of meadow land; beyond that the stinted pasture; and beyond that again the forest or waste.
By the term "common" is generally understood common of pasture; it is not unusual to meet with the phrase "cow commons," as though cows were the principal, if not the sole, objects which rendered commons of service. This may well have been the case in later times. In early days however, there went along with it common tillage, examples of which are still to be found on the Continent. ”

“ Now unthrifts riot and run in debt upon the boldness of these places; yea, and rich men run thither with poor men's goods. There they build, there they spend, and bid their creditors go whistle. Men's wives run thither with their husband's plate, and say they dare not abide with their husbands for beating. Thieves bring thither their stolen goods, and live thereon riotously; there they devise new robberies, and nightly they steal out they rob and rive, kill and come in again, as though those places give them not only a safeguard for the harm they have done, but a licence also to do more. ”

“ Much would depend on the capital possessed by the free tenant, who might elect to make good any deficiency by corporal labour. The villein had no capital, and was simply an instrument, like the cattle of which he had charge, in the working of the estate. He was bound to the soil with which all his interests were linked; and he was regarded in the light of an investment, in which the lord had a perpetual stake. It was the lord who furnished him with the means of gaining a livelihood, and, in return for this accommodation, the lord demanded from him, and his children after him, lifelong service. ”

“ The culmination of duty and fidelity in life and death is seen in the immolation of Hindu widows. The Manu prescribes no such fiery ordeal, [Pg 19] but it states the principles leading to this display of futile heroism: "Let her consecrate her body by living entirely on flowers, roots, and fruits. Let her not, when her lord is deceased, ever pronounce the name of another man. A widow who slights her deceased lord by marrying again brings disgrace on herself here below, and shall be excluded from the seat of her lord." ”

“ In early times, before writing became a common accomplishment, and when, as now, men might be eager to clinch a bargain without loss of time, it was desirable in the interests of common honesty that such agreements should be made in the light of day and in the face of the world. This custom appears to have continued to a late date. ”

“ And if a clerk, flying to the church for felony, affirming himself to be a clerk, he shall not abjure the realm, but yielding himself to the laws of the realm, shall enjoy the liberties of the church, and shall be delivered to the ordinary, to be safe kept in the convict prison, according to the laudable custom of the realm of England. ”

“ Let us follow the "poor boy," a technical expression at Oxford, through the stages of his academic career in that University. At the outset two courses were open to his parents or guardians: either he might be sent to a religious foundation like Durham College, where he would be under no obligation to take vows, but an oath would be required of him to honour the monks and assist the electing Church, to whatever station of life it might please God to call him. Or, as was infinitely more usual, he might be settled in a secular school of grammar in charge of a recognized master. ”

“ Whereas at the feasts held at graduations there occur such disorderly scenes and violence that more annoyance and disgrace than pleasure is caused to the host himself and all his guests, the University, for the prevention of such disorders for the future, hereby orders that no one shall stop the ingress and egress of any master or his servants to or from the hall or tent or other place where the feast is being held; and that no one, except the servants of the University, or of the host, shall enter the said hall, until after the masters, who have been invited, have entered with their servants ”

“ Ancient judicial theory and practice comprehended not merely trials before a regular tribunal, in which the merits of a case were duly ascertained by the joint efforts of judge, counsel, and assize, but also an alternative method of arriving at the same result—namely, a solemn appeal to the bar of Almighty God. ”

“ Burgesses claimed to be masters in their own house and acted in concert with an eye to the common good. This led to the growth or institution of customs divisible into two main categories. One of these was concerned with the correction of refractory or immoral persons dwelling within the gates; and the other with the regulation of commerce. These categories were not entirely divorced, since the infraction of trade ordinances was visited with something more than mere obloquy. ”

“ It was not, then, as a mode of proof that the combat was received, nor as making negative evidence (according to the supposition of Montesquieu) , but in every case the right to offer battle was founded on the right to pursue by arms the redress of an injury; and the judicial combat was fought on the same principle, and with the same spirit, as a private duel. Champions were only allowed to women, and to men maimed or past the age of sixty. The consequence of a defeat was death to the person accused, or to the champion, or witness, as well as to the accuser himself ”

“ Those familiar with the life of our ancient universities only in its more modern and luxurious aspects may prepare for revelations of the most startling character, for Oxford and Cambridge were nurtured not only in poverty, but in authorized mendicancy and—a learned phrase may be excused—regulated hypothecation. ”

“ In earlier days the right may have been surrendered by timid or ignorant townspeople under the pressure of a local lord of the manor strong enough to set the law at defiance, or a compromise may have been effected between him and those in temporary enjoyment of the benefit. These, as we have observed, sometimes consisted of no more than a fraction of the inhabitants, and, as the population increased, this would be a diminishing fraction, with the result that outsiders would be apathetic regarding the fate of the common. Where there was a special qualification, it was not necessarily seniority. ”

“ More than once in the course of this work we have had occasion to refer to the existence of an unfree class in England, on which prouder and more happily circumstanced persons looked with considerable disdain, and therefore our account would fail of a necessary element of completeness if it omitted to deal, in some measure, with this striking phenomenon of mediæval English life. ”

“ In Wales the custom of Hereford held the field, and in the south-west the custom of Winchester, which, through transmission to Newcastle, prevailed also in Northumberland and Scotland. The customs of York and the Cinque Ports attracted smaller groups, while the custom of London was not only mother of the custom of Oxford, but grandmother of the custom of Bedford, since the citizens of Oxford were called in by the last-named town to adjudicate on obscure points, and they themselves repaired to London, as the fountain-head, in the event of any internal dispute. ”

“ As regards ordinary civil rights Adam was doubtless a freeman—otherwise he could not have brought this action—but he was not a freeman in the sense that he paid scot and lot in the town of Gloucester.
Such persons were often styled "foreigners," and therefore the plaintiff in this case would have occupied precisely the same position as "foreign" merchants who transgressed the customs of London. One of these was that they were not to attend any market or fair at a greater distance than three miles from the City, nor had Justices or Sheriff power to give them leave to do so. ”

“ At the time the festival was abolished, opinion was divided even among the leaders of reform. Thus Archbishop Strype openly favoured the custom, holding that it "gave a spirit to the children," and was an encouragement to them to study in the hope of attaining some day the real mitre. Broadly speaking, then, the Boy-Bishop festival is evidence of the tender condescension of Holy Mother Church to little children, and it does not stand alone. ”

“ The existence of a common in association with a town or village or group of villages is not a self-evident proposition, to be taken for granted. It is clearly part of a system which it now becomes our business to investigate. ”

“ Notices of the Irish and the Scots are no less characteristic of their imputed traits. Of the presence of the former there is interesting testimony in petitions to the Crown on the part of scandalized townsmen, in one of which they set forth that "there have been murders, felonies, robberies, and riots, &c., lately committed in the counties of Oxford, Berks, Wilts, and Bucks, by persons coming to the town under the jurisdiction of the University, some of whom are the King's lieges born in Ireland and the others his enemies called 'Wylde Irisshmen' ”